At Long Last
by Blossom 'n Buttercup
Summary: Based on The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver, Estevan and Esperanza worry about the safety of their daughter, Ismene, then later find out that she is safe in America.


Climbing up the steps of the church Esperanza could see patches of green through the crystal clear windows. As she climbed further and further up the stairs the entirety of the scene came into view. Through a large window near the top of the stairs she could see along a path lined with white ageratums. The path led back behind the church up to a small, white clapboard building, the vast Great Plains stretching on endlessly beyond it. Esperanza and her husband Estevan had lived in that small clapboard building behind the church when they first came to Oklahoma, but soon had to move out to make room for another group of refugees.

Sighing, Esperanza turned ahead and trudged up the remainder of the stairs. At the top she entered their room, which they had moved into after the others took residence in the clapboard building. The room was small, so small in fact it looked as if it was meant as a storage closet, not a bedroom for two full-grown people. The door was even undersized, despite the fact that Esperanza could walk through with ease, Estevan had to duck slightly every time he came in. However, Esperanza and Estevan were grateful for whatever help they could get, and they knew Reverend Stone, the one allowing them to stay here, was doing his best.

Working around the bed, which took up almost the entire space, Esperanza began anxiously straightening the precious few items they had in the room. They had brought as many things as they could from their home in Guatemala when they fled to America, but they were forced to leave a countless number of belongings behind, one of which included their daughter Ismene.

Ismene was taken during a police raid on their village and they haven't seen her again since. The police had hoped to use Ismene to lure Estevan and Esperanza to them so they could get the names of the others members in the Teachers Union Estevan worked with. But instead of giving up the names they decided to flee to the United States without their daughter. Since then Estevan and Esperanza have been hiding out as illegal immigrants avoiding detection by immigration, but they always held out hope that one day Ismene would be able to join them.

Then, only a couple days ago, there was a rumor of a young girl that had just arrived in the U.S. from Guatemala. From what Esperanza and Estevan had heard the girl had sounded like Ismene. She was the right age and they had heard that both of her parents were already in the United States, but there was no way to know for sure. They received word of new refugees every once and a while, but they were always very vague for fear of detection by police. The only way they could find out if it was actually Ismene was to contact their old friend Mattie, whom they had stayed with in Tucson when they first arrived in America. According to the murmurs they had been hearing the young girl was with her.

That was what Estevan had gone to do that morning. Right after breakfast he went to go and find a pay phone to call Mattie. Esperanza was more nervous now than she could remember being since they had left Guatemala. It had been so long she hoped that Mattie still had the same phone number and would answer the phone, but most of all she hoped that the young girl was truly their daughter.

Looking around at the pristine room, her eyes wandered over every crease in the sheets and on the curtains hopelessly searching for something to preoccupy herself. Estevan had told her to stay home arguing that she needed her rest, but she couldn't do anything let alone rest at this time, not with the possibility of her daughter being in the country only a few hundred miles away. She wished that she had fought him and made him take her, but it was too late and she could nothing more than wait now.

Finally giving up her search for imperfections, Esperanza sat on the flawlessly made bed and opened a drawer in a small white side-table next to it. Pulling out a beautifully embroidered dress she carefully ran her fingers over the stitches. This was her favorite dress, one of the only pieces of clothing she had left from Guatemala. Each one of her dresses was handmade, and by running her fingers over them she could almost feel the time and effort put into each and every stitch. Slowly she allowed herself to be transported back home, away from her life in the small storage closet of a room they have had to call home, to the house they used to all live in happily, together. She quickly forgot all her uneasiness and began to imagine herself sitting with Ismene leisurely sewing a beautiful dress like the very one she had in her hand.

Suddenly, with a start, she was brought back to reality by a loud bang coming from downstairs. She froze, quickly tucking the dress back into the side-table listening hard trying to figure out what the noise was. After a few moments she heard the sound of friendly voices coming from downstairs and she allowed herself to relax. Simply shrugging it off, and now curious, she stood up and walked over to the door, which she had left opened, trying to see what the commotion was.

To her surprise she saw Estevan at the base of the stairs, but before he could go any further someone called to him and he went back down the hallway to where Esperanza couldn't see him. She watched him walk away anxiously.

_How could anyone take him away now! _She thought furiously eyeing the base of the stairs waiting for him to reappear. _Don't they know the importance of what he has to tell me? _

But then it dawned on her, they didn't know. No one had known of their suspicions about the young girl being their daughter and Estevan hadn't told anyone, beside herself, where he was going that morning. She was just going to have to wait a little bit longer.

Walking back into the room, her mind raced. What meaningless task were they having him perform? What could they have possibly asked him to do that he couldn't have politely refused? She stopped, realizing that she had been pacing and in doing so had messed up the blanket on the bed. She stared at it blankly, not caring how the room looked anymore, her mind was elsewhere.

_Maybe he doesn't want to come up because he doesn't have good news, they had been wrong about Ismene. He surely would have come upstairs right away if it was her. He would have been happy._ She thought hard, had he looked happy? The glimpse of him she had gotten on the stairs was hardly enough to tell, but despite that she still tried pointlessly looking for some kind of a sign.

All of the sudden she heard footsteps coming up the stairs and immediately recognized it as Estevan, his voice carrying up to her from below.

"No, no it wasn't a problem. I'm always happy to help." Estevan turned, looking up the stairs at her, and to her excitement, he smiled. He seemed to say everything in that smile, just the sight of it made her worries fade away.

"Is it her? Is it Ismene?" she blurted out before he even reached the room fighting back tears. She couldn't tell whether the tears were from excitement or anxiety, but at the moment she wasn't thinking about it too hard.

His smile widened showing his flawless white teeth. Swiftly walking up the last few steps he reached her, quickly wrapped his arms around her waist and whisked her into the room looking into her eyes. After a few moments he reached up and touched her cheek, tenderly wiping away a tear.

"It is her," he said softly in Spanish, his eyes glowing. "She's safe with Mattie. She had thought it was Ismene when she first arrived, seeing the resemblance, but she didn't want to say anything until she was sure."

"And she is sure now?" she muttered hopefully.

Estevan nodded slightly, his smile never faltering. "Ismene talked to her. She told Mattie about what she remembered of the raid. She remembers that she was taken away from her real parents and raised by government officials. As soon as Mattie heard that, she was certain it was her." He paused for a moment trying to find the right words. "She is safe, Esperanza, she is in the country and she is safe." He said finally as she hugged him tightly tears streaming down her face.

"She is safe," she repeated to herself allowing those few incredible words to sink in. She gazed at him again still astounded at the news.

"When can we see her?" she asked innocently, "will she even want to see us again after all this time?"

Estevan smiled his flawless smile, tears now filling his eyes. "Soon, mi amor, and I am certain that she will want to see us again just as much as we wish to see her. Time changes nothing; we will always be her parents as she will forever be our daughter."

Esperanza smiled hugging him firmly. "We will be a family again."

"Yes, at long last we will be a family again," he answered reassuringly fully aware that it wasn't a question. He kissed on the forehead softly. "just as we were before."


End file.
